For an interesting dissertation on eutectic pistons and
supercharging check out the February issue of Car Craft starting on page 36 "A Boat Anchor Into a 611HP Screamer"
It's interesting to note that they started out with a boat engine.

In short, they broke a bunch of pistons.

There's a message board called justanothertoy.com, and one
of the participants, pipelayer, supercharged a couple of 6.2's
in his Powerquest and experienced this kind of joy. I don't know if you can still find it on that board, because the board got hacked a couple of times and rebuilt. He still posts there from time to time.

I'm not an engine builder, just passing on a few observations.

Pesky Varmint

Were either of these carb setups Pesky? I have yet to see or hear of a properly set up carb supercharged engine that have the hypereutectic (or cast) pistons as the primary mode of failure. That means proper ring end gaps, proper head gaskets and bolts, proper a/f and appropriate advance curve, and otherwise no detonation due to leaky valve seals or anything else. If the setup is wrong forged will fail too, its just a matter of time difference, forged are more forgiving. But the real advantage to forged is when they fail they melt a hole in the top and cause less damage than when a hypereutectic fails, which is it shatters and destroys the engine.

So you see, it makes little difference what your pistons are, if your setup is incorrect. With FI is is very hard to get the setup right. So if you want to supercharge a newer style engine with the hypers, you should plan to go to carb. Otherwise you will be prone to fail as others have mentioned. I just disagree with the idea it is the pistons fault.

BT :cool:

Motors don't just fail, and hyperutetic pistons don't just fall apart. These pistons fail, in these types of applications for multiple reasons, many would also fail a forged piston, it just takes longer, and at 5000rpm, were talking seconds, not hours. Number 1 killer is detonation, and this is far more likely with high boost levels, suspect gas, agressive spark curve, lean air fuel, too hot spark plug, high engine temps (above 140 on stock engines is hot when SC'd), high oil temps, tight clearance, etc. All plus more have effects.

The simple fact is that you can supercharge stock motors, and as long as things are kept within reason, you'll get extreme pleasure and excellent reliability from them. If it's not setup right, as some mfg's don't sale a 100% pre-done system, then thats already 1 major thing thats going to possibly add to the chance of a failure. Thats why the "system" is so important, you have to rely on the mfg. to give you something that won't give you 8 ash-trays!

It's only hard when you can't control the ECM. The ECM has all the capability needed to make the motor work, whether it's the MEFI 3 for the 99-02 motors or the ECM from 02-08, both can be setup properly by the right person or mfg. Although carbs are nice, and simple, the EFI gives you far more ability in spark, knock and fueling control, but because of this, your dependent on the calibration. Similar to a carb, if you got a moron tuning the carb, you might as well hand over your wallet and go home. So good carb guy can make a carb SC'd motor run, good FI guy can make a EFI motor run. The problem is, there's many EFI guys that claim to be experts that aren't, and a lot of times, that gives EFI a bad rap.

I believe we have agreement here. The only thing I would add is a carb is an analog type signal, meaning one change and you get a whole range of change. FI is digital and you need to either map the whole profile or be able to write logrithms to simulate analog. I stick to carbs for the moment because that is what I have the technolgy to tune. Others contemplating SC should consider their tuning ability before venturing beyond stock calibration on FI. But let's not blame the stock hypereutectic piston for these failures. If you have FI and want to supercharge, I am convinced you need to invest in the technology or hire a pro like WC above. Anything less will get you ashtrays as WC says.

Very well said. Many blame issues with motors on the parts themselves (pistons, rods...), and while it's certainly possible, it's not always the case. Most go off prior knowledge, example, the 2005 Mustang GT had a new high compression motor, 3v per cylinder, hyperutetic pistons and the ring is almost on the top of the piston. So many people said you can't make power with that, can't run boost. Well we run 12psi, intercooled and take power from 300 to 575hp, on a stock engine. It passed a 100 hour durability test, 50 peak torque, 50 peak hp. Sold a few thousand, failure is less than 2%. Piston isn't ideal, and certainly not what you would do for a built SC'd motor, but, it works just fine in it's given arena.

Whipples are the ****, and Dustin knows what hes doing !!!!!